Verden is a recruitment agency with a clear mission: helping professionals find meaningful work in sustainability, social real estate, and t
Despite a strong brand philosophy, they struggled to cut through the noise of generic job boards, often attracting applicants who lacked the specific intrinsic motivation required for their niche roles.
The core problem was that "meaningful work" is a difficult concept to target with broad keywords. Their existing traffic consisted largely of general job seekers, leading to a high volume of irrelevant CVs and low engagement from key decision-makers in their target sectors (like Housing Associations and Municipalities).
We implemented a dual-layer acquisition strategy. With Google Ads, we moved away from generic "vacancy" terms and targeted specific, high-intent niche keywords related to social impact careers. Simultaneously, we used Meta Ads to tell emotional stories, targeting passive candidates who weren't actively looking for a job, but were looking for a purpose.
Key clients in the public and sustainability sectors were unaware of Verden’s specialized network.
Too many applications from candidates looking for "just a paycheck," rather than the mission-driven professionals Verden specializes in.
The best "purpose-driven" candidates were often already employed and not searching on Google, making them unreachable via search alone.
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The best "purpose-driven" candidates were often already employed and not searching on Google, making them unreachable via search alone.
We overhauled the Google Ads strategy to target niche, long-tail keywords such as "vacatures duurzaamheid" (sustainability jobs) and "werken in sociaal domein" (social domain work), filtering out generic job seekers.
Key Learning: aligning keywords with values rather than just job titles dramatically increases applicant quality.
On Meta (Facebook & Instagram), we ran video ads featuring testimonials from real placements—people sharing how their new role gave them purpose. This emotional hook stopped the scroll for passive candidates.
We created separate ad sets for each of their four domains (Sustainability, Social Domain, Real Estate, Housing), ensuring that a housing professional only saw ads relevant to their specific expertise.
We ran a parallel B2B campaign on Meta targeting HR directors in the public sector, promoting Verden’s whitepapers (e.g., "ZZP in the social domain") to build authority and generate client leads.
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